Actress Ya Hui’s lost AirPods that ended up in Australia have been found, thanks to 2 Singaporeans in Perth

Remember when Ya Hui, 35, lost her AirPods at Jewel Changi? Well, we have a crazy update for you guys.

Thanks to the power of 8days.sg and two very gung-ho Singaporeans in Perth, the AirPods were retrieved on Monday (Mar 27) afternoon. Say whaaat?!

As it turns out, an 8days.sg reader who chanced upon our first article decided to take the plunge to see if he could help out. And in less than an hour, everything was done and dusted. 

So what exactly went down?

We spoke to Ricky Hee, 35, who owns a car rental business in Perth, as well as his businessman pal Linus Tan, 37, to find out more. 

According to the duo, it was pretty much a spur of the moment decision. Hee happened to read our article on Monday morning, and decided to call up Tan to see if he “wanted to go for an adventure”.

"I was just reading the article after I dropped my kids off at school at about 8.30am. I realised that the location was in Perth, about half an hour away. And 'cos both of us are in business, we have a bit more free time on our hands, [so we decided to track it down],” Hee shared.

The location Ya Hui posted on her Instagram showed that her AirPods were near a roundabout, with a couple of houses in the area. So Hee and Tan decided to go door-to-door to see if they were able to speak to whoever took the AirPods. 

“We thought we might need to leave a note [since people might be at work], and wanted to offer a S$100 finders fee, to make it not paiseh (embarrassing) for the other person,” Hee said. 

But it was not needed at all. By sheer luck, the first house they knocked on turned out to be the right one.

"Apparently they mistakenly grabbed the AirPods when they were packing up their stuff, and [the guy] somehow ended up with the AirPods. He was very kind about it, he didn't give any indication that he meant to take them. He was very forthright and gave them back straight away,” Tan said.

“We have a selfie together too. He’s a Filipino guy, and really nice,” Hee added.

"The drive down was longer than the whole adventure. The drive was half an hour, the interaction was probably about five minutes,” said Tan with a laugh.

When 8days.sg reached out to Ya Hui, her first reaction was: “I think social media is really amazing. I managed to ‘save' my AirPods thanks to [social media] and technology, so it’s really a good thing.”

She went on to share that she’s in contact with Hee, who reached out to her via an Instagram DM, and that her AirPods are already in the mail, on the way back to Singapore.

At the end of the day, Hee and Tan shared that they simply wanted to help a fellow countryman.

“[We wanted to] look out for a fellow Singaporean and also preserve the kindness of Perth people!” Hee said.

This story was originally published in 8Days.